Elermore Vale World War II veteran calls upon others to march in local Anzac Day services

WORLD War II veteran Jack Carter is calling for the heirs of Australian service medals to dust them off and march them in their local memorial service this Anzac Day.

Mr Carter, aged 88, from Elermore Vale, served in the RAAF and will march at Wallsend this Friday with his son, Stephen, grandson Gavin and great-grandson Samuel.

Mr Carter was awarded the Australia Service Medal, the Defence Medal and the War Medal, all three for the period 1939 to 1945.

While Mr Carter will wear his three service medals, the other three generations of the Carter family will wear the medals from his daughter-in-law's side of the family, which include medals from World War I, World War II and the Korean War.

A Stockton ferry fare collector, Mr Carter was just 18-years-old when he joined the RAAF in 1943.

Tocumwal was the location for his rookie's course, then he was posted to Bowral.

He re-mustered to the RAAF marine section at Rathmines and sat for a marine navigation course, and ended up in Darwin to work on small boats, air sea rescue boats, fuel barges and landing barges.

After a stint at Melville Island he was transported to the Vansittart Bay in the northern Kimberley region.

Mr Carter said Anzac Day should be about educating younger generations and involving them as much as possible.

He was proud to have four generations of his family march with him for the first time this year. Mr Carter has been involved with preserving the Anzac memory in recent years, giving talks at local schools as the (now former) president of the Extremely Disabled War Veterans Association of Newcastle and donating his paintings to be raffled for Rathmines Catalina Memorial Park fund-raisers.

Numbers at the Wallsend Anzac Dawn march and service had ballooned to more than 2000 last year and Mr Carter said he was looking forward to another big turnout this year.